The 4 Cs
Diamond is the ultimate gemstone having very few flaws as opposed to its countless strength. No need to stress that they are the hardest mineral that ever walked our planet because it is for certain that you already have already heard about it a couple of times in your life.
Its unparalleled characteristics and superb brilliance of course comes with a price, and this price is pretty high I tell you. The cost and value of a single diamond is based on the characteristics and attributes that it possess. And all of these are gauged using the 4 C’s method.
The 4 C’s is a process where the qualities of the diamond are weighed out to get a numerical value for its cost. It runs in 4 basic tests to accommodate the 4 C’s of diamonds - its Color, clarity, carat, and cut. The term method may be just an overstatement for it does not undergo a rigorous process to be priced. The process is simply a scale or a standard measurement where the diamonds are compared to further determine its price. The closer the diamond results are to the left on all of the scales, the costly and the rarer it will be.
Color
In an ideal world, diamonds must be colorless just like a drop of clear water. The intensity of the color of the diamonds is measured on a specific range where D represents no color at all whereas Z is deeply tinted. Diamonds submitted for grading are compared to the so-called master stones under both natural and artificial lighting. If an inexperienced person conducts the tests, he can also make use of the colorimeter, a machine used to sort it by color. However, there can never be a replacement for the trained human eyes.
Clarity
Some gemologists suggest that clarity is the most important among all of the 4 C’s used to determining the price of the diamonds. A particular diamond’s clarity is decided on a number of varied aspects such as nature, size, color, the internal traits sometimes referred to as inclusions and the external flaws called blemishes. These imperfections are caused from its origin, diamonds are supposedly purely carbon, and however, during the natural process of crystallization, other minerals may be trapped and included in its formation.
Clarity is gauged on a particular scale from the range of the purest (flawless) to the ones with heavy inclusions (I-3). Believe it or not, but the clarity of the diamond is tested and graded under 10 times magnification only on good lighting condition.
Carat
Another very important aspect among the 4 C’s is its carat. Carat is the unit of mass not only for diamonds but also for all gemstones. A carat is divided into 100 points. Therefore a diamond with 50 points is equivalent to ½ in carat weight or can also be presented as 0.50 carat. The term carat originated from the seeds of the carob trees which were used to measure the weight of both semi-precious and precious gems.
Cut
Cut is unfortunately the forgotten C in most cases. Diamonds have different color intensity especially the colored ones and it’s up to the hands of a skilled cutter where he takes this to the diamonds’ advantage. It is just as important as the other C’s of grading for the perfect cut also contributes to its overall appearance. In simpler terms, if a piece of diamond is flashed in the light but it somehow did not catch your attention, then it surely isn’t well-cut.
The 4 C’s diamond grading method may be the most famous and widely used gauging process to determine the value of a diamond but it is not all. Diamond experts can simply assess a piece of diamond in just one look. Nothing really substitutes the power of the human instinct.